I don\'t have the Vallejo Slow Dry, but I do use Liquitex Slow-dri retarder. I also tend to wet-blend just about everything, and used to do it even when I didn\'t have any retarding fluid. Wet-blending with just water is something of a challenge because you\'re extremely limited on time to work with the paint, but I found that my actual technique hasn\'t changed all that much; the introduction of a retardant simply gives more time to work.
What I typically do is open all the colours I\'ll use (or put a drop of each on a palette, depending on if I\'m working with Citadel or Vallejo paints) and put a few drops of retarder on the palette as well. Instead of keeping the brush wet with water, I keep it wet with retarder and dip between the colours as I need them.
You might want to consider putting all the paint you work with on a palette (with a small bit of retarder to keep them thin) rather than dipping straight into the pots as I do. If not, you\'ll end up with small dots of the other colour in each pot, which isn\'t a huge concern for me since I\'m usually working with similar shades. It depends on how strictly you want to maintain colour purity. I don\'t put drops out when I\'m working with Citadel because I find that even with the retarder, that brand dries out too fast when it\'s in small puddles. Vallejo is a totally different story; it thins beautifully with retarder or water and stays workable for longer.
Every so often, I put a drop of fresh retarder in the open paint pots since leaving them open under two hot lights makes them thick as I\'m working. I do this before closing the paints up, too, so that the retarder will undo the \"damage\" of having left them open while working.
When I was working with just water, I\'d often have to stop, close my open paints, shake them up, and wash out my brush since you don\'t want to work with thick paint. With retarder, this isn\'t needed as often since it\'s easier (and therefore faster) to get a good blend finished. A good rule of thumb is that anytime the paint starts getting thick, it\'s a good idea to shake the pots and clean the brushes to start anew.
Don\'t try to get everything done in one go. Take it in small sections, making sure to pay attention to the consistency of the paint.
If the colours aren\'t blending perfectly, rinse out your brush, dip it in retarder, tap it on a towel to get out the excess, and run it across the blending point a few times. I find that helps smooth out transistions quite well, without the bias of the brush having too much of one colour or the other.
That\'s the tips off the top of my head. Good luck with it.
Kep
